Conservatives and Their Poisonous Understanding of Islam

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Reuel Gerecht, who recently appeared on this blog to discuss why the bigoted blogger Pamela Geller doesn't understand the complexity of Islam (or doesn't care to understand the complexity of Islam), dilates on the subject some more for The New Republic. His target this time is bigger than Geller -- Newt Gingrich, who has lately been doing remarkable damage to his reputation as an educated person, in part by deliberately misinterpreting for his audience the content, use and meaning of Shari'a, Islamic law:

When Westerners, however well-intentioned, start suggesting that Muslim law supplies the foundation for Islamic terrorism, it immediately conveys to Muslims, even secularized Muslims, that Westerners think all Muslims are disordered, that the only route to salvation runs through a renunciation of their faith (that is, they ought to become the mirror-image of Westerners who go to church every so often. Whatever vestigial pride Muslims may have in their religious law (most Muslims aren't particularly fastidious or knowledgeable about the Sharia, but nevertheless have an understandable historic affection for it), gets crudely pummeled by such commentators.

The blanket demonization of the Holy Law can lead one to view Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most revered Shiite thinker in the world, and one who tried desperately and selflessly to keep his country from descending into internecine savagery, as a bigot and a terrorist engine. The same would be true for the late Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, the spiritual father of Iran's Green Movement and the nemesis of Ali Khamenei, Iran's ruler, himself a very mediocre student of the Sharia.

I happen to agree with O'Reilly on the mosque/Ground Zero issue. But
his analogy is flawed. With Japan, we were dealing with a nation-state;
with al-Qaeda, we are dealing with a small percentage of militants in a
faith that includes more than 1.5 billion people in more than 200 countries.

Moreover, O'Reilly's claim is unfair - and O'Reilly should
understand why. Here's an illustration that might help clarify things.
Assume that Sam Harris went on The O'Reilly Factor and, based
on the child-abuse scandals that tarnished the reputation of the
Catholic Church, made the sweeping claim that "Catholics are child
molesters." My guess is that O'Reilly would (rightly) respond, "No. Some
priests molested children, and it was a horrific thing. But you can't
indict an entire faith based on the sins of a relatively few number of
priests."

We shouldn't kid ourselves; there is a not-insignificant strand of
people in the Muslim world who align themselves with the ideology of
al-Qaeda - and an even larger number who more or less accept its
narrative of history. The condemnations by more moderate Muslims
against its militant strand could certainly be more muscular. At the
same time, the militant Islamists who attacked us on 9/11 don't
represent the vast majority of Muslims in the world - and certainly not
the views of most Muslim Americans.

It is obviously difficult for many people to differentiate between Islam and political Islamism, the ideological strand within Islam that breeds terrorism and extremism. But it is exceedingly important to understand that difference; if we don't, we will give al Qaeda what it wants -- a civilizational struggle between the West and all of Islam. The Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman, in a recent speech, did a good job of parsing the differences between extremist Islam and the Islam practiced by the majority of Muslims, and he did a particularly good job of outlining the West's dual responsibilities -- to fight extremism without resorting to demonization:

Islam is one of the world's great religions. But, like Judaism and Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism and others, if you it isn't your religion you most likely have little knowledge, if any, of it, its beliefs and practices. Ignorance has always been one of the common denominators of those who are bigoted against "the others." And ignorance can breed fear which too easily can become hatred. We must differentiate between extreme theology and ideology in Islam and condemn it and challenge it, while at the same time define and separate it from the non-extremist ideology and theology. We must condemn the brand of Islam that venerates violence and intolerance. And welcome into the modern world the rest of Islam that rejects violence and intolerance. And at the same time keep it in perspective.

The Muslim community in America is being confronted by ugly in-your-face religious bigotry and we must speak out against it, educate against it and label it anti-American.

Allow me a historical reference. During World War II, David Ben Gurion recognizing the inherent conflict between British restrictions on Jewish immigration and settlement and the fact that Britain was fighting Nazi Germany, said in statement that Zionists "would fight the war as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there was no war."

Therefore: Despite the fact that there is a serious enmity between the Children of Ishmael and the Children of Isaac, when religious bigotry rears its ugly head against Muslims we must speak out.